


regret is for the weak

by kryptic



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, banging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 05:06:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kryptic/pseuds/kryptic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If he cannot fill the void left by her death, he will tear it open.</p>
            </blockquote>





	regret is for the weak

It’s late at night when he is woken by the rush of rapidly expanding air.  Corvo has always been a light sleeper.  After Coldridge, he is barely a sleeper at all.  Warm metal seems to jump into his palm as he clamors to sit upright.

“Forgive me,” demands a man in the darkness.

The initial shock of hearing that voice is like a physical slap, rippling through his chest.  It’s pitch black – Corvo would not even have his sword in hand if he did not sleep with it cradled against his chest – but he would recognize those gravel tones anywhere.  Even so, he squints into the darkness, whispers an incantation.  The golden figure of the empress’s murderer jumps into view.

“…I’ve already forgiven you.”  Corvo stands, relaxes slightly when he does not detect a weapon, but does not dare turn his back to the other man.  He gropes behind his body until he finds the corner of his chest of drawers and pulls one open, hunting around for a shirt.

“It isn’t working,” Daud protests.  He realizes that he is making not a lick of sense, but invites himself to step closer, as if finding proximity will help Corvo to understand.  He waves the first answer off with a single flippant hand.

“She’s still here.”  His fingers curl into a cage and position themselves over his heart, clawing at the vacuum of its contents.  “It won’t end.”

Corvo frowns, shakes his head.  Sparing his life was, in many ways, more torture than mercy.  It has left him nearly as devoid of options as cold-blooded murder.  “I’m sorry.  There’s nothing more I can do for you.”

“Isn’t there?”

His eyes sparkle with pricks of light and narrow as he does up his buttons.  The favors one can receive for being the Outsider’s favorite.  “You need to calm down.”

“Do you think I haven’t _tried_?” Daud snaps.  “Do you think any other man would have lasted half as long as I have?”

There is nothing he can say to that.  Corvo nods and breathes far too loudly and they stand there in the uncomfortable quiet for a few moments longer.

“I need you,” Daud begins eventually.  His throat bobs as he swallows and carefully considers his next words.  He paces like a cat, every limb and joint moving in perfect unison.  There is too little space between him and Corvo, and he occupies himself with closing it even further.  “To help me.”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

The rise and fall of Daud’s chest matches the ticking of the clock.  Neat, regular, cold.  He counts sixty beats before speaking, divides it by ten and twenty and two point five.  “…There is something.”

The tendons in his neck are stark and taut.  His body finds perfect equilibrium as he leans slightly forward, the shape of his muscles outlined in shadow across his clothes.

He lunges and covers Corvo’s mouth with a savage kiss that lasts less than a fraction of a second.  By the time he can taste the other’s skin, they have jumped apart like parallel charges, mouths open, lips tingling with the phantom of an instant.  Disbelief is a fog that hangs heavy in the room and expands to fill the space that separates them.  It is enough for Daud to remember himself, shut his mouth and tear his gaze away, though his fingers reach up and trace the contours of that ghost.  His eyes flick upward to the other to watch from the periphery of his vision, hunched and wary like a wounded hound at the fighting pits.

He bites his tongue because he needs to taste of contrast, to redraw the line between abstinence and indulgence, between remorse and confession, between Corvo and himself.

_We’re of the same breed, you and I._

The thought of unity brings scorching images into his mind that are better left ignored, and he glances away again because the Royal Protector leaves him no choice but to see.  If he does not learn to control himself, he will be on his knees as he was then, and this time, his hands will not be pressed to his wounds.  They will grope and grasp and tangle into the fabric of the victor’s clothes, tug him down even as he arches up and exposes his own throat for slitting in the pursuit of redemption.  Their teeth will collide with savagery and they will know the shape of one another’s mouths and of their hands and their backs and of the coarse carpet against their skin.

And that is far too dangerous.  It will only bring more guilt.

“I’m not—“ Corvo stammers.  His eyes fade to match the pitch blackness coating the rest of the room.

Daud’s head snaps up to the direction of the voice.  The flush of his cheeks can’t be seen in the dark, but they burn.  He waits a few moments for the other man to finish before prompting him.  “Not what?”  He already knows what the response will be.

It is a schoolboy’s answer, cramped and embarrassed.  “I don’t like men.”

“Is that so?”

Daud can’t help himself.  It sounds too much like a challenge.  And if he’s already going to burn for killing Jessamine, he might as well make his soul a grand pyre.  So he steps forward.  Measures his paces until the soft wheeze of the Royal Protector’s breathing is just in range.  Slowly, gently, he presses two fingers against the crook of the other man’s neck and counts the pulses of his heart rate.  It beats like a drum against his glove.

“Something you want to tell me?”

Corvo’s labored gasp is painfully revealing.  Daud tries again, drawing his fingers away and bringing them to his mouth to pinch the leather between his teeth and tear it off.  Now, he trails bare skin across Corvo’s throat, hearing his breath catch again.  He is calloused.  They both are.

“You bastard,” the younger man gasps.

Daud cringes a little, nods though he knows his counterpart cannot see.  “You don’t need to tell me.”

In all his years of study, Daud has never once learned a word for what he is.  ‘Homewrecker’ is probably the closest, and that almost makes him laugh.  He keeps it to himself, though, because if there is one trait that he and the other marked one do not share, it is a sense of humor.

“Does that mean that you hate me?”

There is no hesitation in Corvo's reply.  Only softness, the wild, powerful kind that separates a hound that will bark at you from the one that will tear out your throat.  “Yes.”

“So do I.”

Daud inhales deeply, listing to himself once again the ways that this will destroy them.  He bites his tongue and counts them on his fingers, and when he reaches the end of his record, he leans halfway forward and _waits_.  Corvo wavers, his trembling practically tangible from inches away.  He draws closer, shuts his eyes firmly, and shatters them both.

The action is imprecise and clumsy in the darkness, but it makes no matter.  His lips meet the corner of Daud’s mouth and the assassin curls a hand around his neck and adjusts his aim and _kisses_ him.  Truly, this time.  Wetly and wantonly and _desperately_.  The clash is slow at first, and agonizing, but then their pace quickens along with their breath and their hands begin to grope and months of rage and agony emerge into an embrace that is as much a battle and a scream and a eulogy as it is a kiss.

Corvo’s shirt is wrapped around his fist, that too-long-to-be-practical hair brushing his cheeks, hot breath leaving one mouth to enter another, tongues probing, teasing, fighting, eyes closed, then open, then half-lidded with lust, bodies pressed against each other furiously, writhing, seeking, teeth that nip and challenge and assert.  He takes twisted pleasure in the fact that the other man is shorter than him, that he has to push himself up just slightly onto his toes to reach.  It shows how eager he is.  How much he wants it.

This should not be happening.

No, this should not be happening, Daud thinks as they fall grappling to the floor.  This should not be happening, he tells himself as he struggles to show blind fingers where and how to unfasten his clothes.  This should not be happening, the murderer thinks in the darkness where he cannot see his face.  Cannot see _her_ face.

And then his cock is in Corvo’s hand and he must accept that control has been wrenched out of his hands long ago.  His body is iron and Corvo’s touch is the magnet that draws it upward, arching into a desperate curve, and neither of them want this, but it happens and they cannot escape each other.  The air is thick with moans and curses and they are all identical, only they are one word instead of three, but the phrase hangs heavy over their heads all the same.  The precipitation of loathing soaks them to the bone.

Corvo does not even pause when Daud curls his fingers into the carpet and gasps _her_ name while spilling into his hand.  The bodyguard finishes him off with a vindictive squeeze and stands immediately, his footsteps moving into the distance.  Daud hears the rustle of fabric as his coat is picked up, swiped over bare skin, and dropped unceremoniously back onto the floor.

He lies flat, arms draped at his sides, chest damp with his own sweat and semen.  It doesn’t matter where Corvo is as long as he exists within earshot.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

A biting answer is hurled back at him, bare and disjointed and muddy with tears.

“ _Get out_.”


End file.
